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August 3, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

Curiouser and curiouser. An infamous draft dodger (and philanderer, and serial filer of bankruptcies, &c. &c., but that’s another Rant) stands before literal Veterans of Foreign Wars, tells them “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening”—and is applauded—while the Fourth Estate is booed. Clearly a significant portion of the electorate can now be classified as bonkers. No single buffoon could have accomplished this grotesque feat, and it could not have happened in just three years. We scratched our editorial head for a while over this, and transcribed the results.

City of Portsmouth officials and the local maker space are taking a firm stand: no using our 3D printers to manufacture the latest iteration of zip gun. A signs indicates local libertarians may take a contrary position.

Working closely with justly proud but beleaguered union members employed by the U.S. Postal Service, we have redesigned our First Class mail piece. This past fortnight saw its first test. The results are conclusive: an unqualified success. We mailed on Friday. Some New Hampshire residents got their paper on [drum roll, please] Saturday! On Monday, a subscriber received her paper … in Texas!

July 6, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

Unexpected as the Spanish Inquisition

One never knows what may turn up in Post Office Box 756. Last week we received an unanticipated copy of the July issue of New Hampshire Magazine. Under the heading, “Best of N.H. 2018 Arts & Culture,” we found this:

“Fortnightly Rant: In this age of 24/7/365 ranting on cable TV and social media, it’s amazing how a more measured and timely rant can sound a lot like common sense. That’s not to make a value judgment about the politics of [the] freely distributed New Hampshire Gazette, just about [the editor’s] temperament. [His] front-page editorials may drive conservatives to crank up Fox News, but his words are carefully chosen and arranged with insight and a sense of humor. OK, dark humor—still, the view of the world from the Portsmouth offices of the ‘Nation’s Oldest Newspaper’ is always enlightening and entertaining, even when exasperating.”

Our thanks to Editor Rick Broussard: your assessment of the alleged editor’s temperament gave our Business (Such as it Is) Manager a good laugh.

June 22, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

We should hardly be surprised that supporters of the President are angry. The Party he took over has been beating the hell out of them for decades, and, thanks to news media incapable of addressing the issue honestly, they blame the feckless Democrats. Now our oligarchs are conducting a vicious experiment in this open-air test lab: what will it take to turns our stomachs?

While the nation turns its horrified eyes to the border, Commander Bone Spur signs a bill to drain off yet more resources from the Veterans Health Administration. Not satisfied with the damage he’s done, he arbitrarily signs a statement saying, in effect, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Not to worry, though. Page eight carries about 140 little stories that will put all this … stuff in some kind of perspective.

June 8, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

It has been yet another fortnight in which we have thanked our lucky stars that we are no more responsible than any other semi-disenfranchised citizen for the disgusting shenanigans on which we must report. As The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ we witnessed the American Revolution—literally. Since then we’ve gone from having educated and articulate leaders, some of whom could quote latin, to a country run by a mob of grifters in thrall to a semi-literate gibberish-spouter. It’s an ugly story, but we write it anyway.

By way of diversion, and in honor of Bike Week, we take a look at the Laconia Motorcycle Riot of 1965. What finally restored order that June night? Apparently the FBI thinks we can’t handle the truth.

Finally, a little good news for a change: Juneteenth is being celebrated with a full day of events, thanks to the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail.

May 25, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

The inverted State of America

“First thing every morning the President of the United States of America and Leader of the Free World, by custom if not in fact, wakens alone, brushes the grease-stained McDonald’s wrappers off his bed, and reaches for his easily-hacked, unsecured iPhone. Paying no attention to the billows of smoke which surround him, he proclaims to his alleged 52 million followers, in garbled, ungrammatical, randomly-capitalized lumps of text only vaguely reminiscent of English, that there is no fire.”

It’s all downhill from there.

The U.S.S. Manchester arrives in Portsmouth for commissioning. Predictably, the Award-Winning Local Daily trips over itself repeating whatever the DoD tells them about the latest addition to the fleet. We are less sanguine.

May 11, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

What is it that’s so jarring about this Administration? We’re just not used to seeing behavior in the Oval Office that’s more appropriate to the carnival midway. We take a not-particularly-sympathetic look at the myriad troubles of the Geek-in-Chief.

In the Alleged News,™ we consider a new tenant in Po’Town’s trendy West End— a franchise, of all things, peddling Koch.

April 27, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

In this era of Instagram and flash trading, life can become terribly confusing. Our leisurely pace of publication allows us to catch things others might miss.

For example, in this issue, we are able to trace the connections between: a girl who was born in Concord, New Hampshire whose state funeral in Moscow featured Nikita Khrushchev standing in the honor guard; a man who was shot in the middle of Fifth Avenue 75 years ago in January; and the Oaf-in-Chief.

In this issue we also remind readers to get ready for Loyalty Day, and, on a more positive note, we remember Kenneth Earl Leidner.

March 30, 2018 — To download this issue of our paper, just click on the image at right.

The U.S. has had National Security Advisors for 65 years. Considering who some of them were, we’re lucky we’re still here.

Now, with the single, simple-minded act of making John Bolton National Security Advisor, President Trump has swept the Oxymoronic Olympics: we are more secure only in the knowledge that more wars are on their way.

Toys Were Us, but they are no longer. What went around came around. The company swallowed thousands of small independent toy stores, then Wal-Mart ate its lunch. Along came private equity; now all that’s left is a dessicated husk and 33,000 unemployed.

The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire finds an appropriate new home.